Top of Taipei 101, Diamond Tony's The Best 85 Panorama (Kitty's Meal)

Nelson @ Taipei 101: We decided to eat a fancy meal at the top the Taipei 101. The 101 used to be the tallest building in the world (taller than CN tower) until is was beat by the one is Saudi Arabia. We were on the 85th floor and the view is really high. Unfortunately, Taiwan is not great to look at. I think it's a really tourist type activity, as you wouldn't think of going up the CN tower in Toronto to eat unless it was a really special occasion. Since it's really pricey, I would imagine it's the same situation here.

The place is own/run by a guy named Diamond Tony. He called it The Best 85 Panorama. Awkward name. It is suppose to be a fusion type, between french/japan/taiwan. I would say it's pretty chinese. Unlike most fine dining places, the serving size is quite large, but they did charge for water. Maybe Chinese people feel ripped off if they get small portions so they had to adjust. We sat by the window, which was nice, but we didn't look out as we were eating as some tables are right against the window.

It is a set menu and you get to choose two appetizers! Two! They had soup and bread to start, so I'm not kidding about the serving size. They had different upgrades to the menu if you wanted a more expensive main.

I'm splitting this into two posts, one with Kitty's choices and one with mine. This is Kitty's

We both had the bread to start, which was Fresh Crab Meat in Cream Sauce, Freshly-bake Garlic Bread. I thought it was oily Basid Bread instead of garlic, but whatever. The sauce was like cream of mushroom. It tasted good and I tried resisting having too much of this. I'll show it with the sauce on the next post.

Kitty picked the Wild Mushroom Cream Soup. It was very rich and much better than mine.

First app for Kitty was the Freshly Imported Botan Shrimp and Tuna Sashimi with Horseradish: It looked really good, and tasted ok, but it was a little warm. I'm used to this sort of dish being served quite cold, but maybe because I ate it after Kitty it warmed up a bit. The shrimp tasted like it was lightly cooked and therefore it was a little wet and not firm as cooked shrimp is typically.

Barbecued Fresh Oysters with Spinach, Sour Cream: Kitty loves oysters and couldn't resist this one. Whatever they put into it makes it taste buttery and rich over the already rich oyster taste.
oysters were rich, nice to have Chinese veggies in the shell

Pan Roasted Duck Leg Confit with Duck Breast (Duck preserved in its own fat) with Citrus Jus: Duck was tougher in comparison to my meal (which you'll find out in my next post), but still tasted good. The skin was salty and that made it good, because it wasn't excessively fatty. The sauerkraut was not good, but I'm generally not a big fan of sauerkraut. The duck portion was surprisingly large, like all the other portions.

The dessert was very creamy and light. they don't describe it on the menu anywhere, but it was just a little sweet taste to finish the meal.